Discovered mysterious signals emanating from a star right next to the Solar System, possibly of aliens

According to The Guardian, in April and May 2019, the Parkes telescope in Australia received a narrow beam of radio waves with a frequency range of 980 MHz emitted from Proxima Centaury for 30 hours continuously. However, this signal was detected only once and has not reappeared until now. Basically, this is a very interesting finding, as signals emitted from satellites or human-made devices usually rarely operate in the 980 MHz band.

Since its inception, the $ 100 million Breakthrough Listen project  has regularly received abnormal radio signals. These radio signals are either native to the Earth, or emitted by the Sun or other natural sources outside the Solar System.

However, the signal obtained by the Parkes telescope seems to be coming directly from Proxima Centauri. Notably, this signal changed slightly during its tracking, in the same way that radio signals are altered by the motion of a planet.

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The Parkes radio telescope is part of the $ 100 million Breakthrough Listen project that searches for radio signals from civilizations outside the Solar System.

"This is the first heavyweight candidate to try to find alien radio signals since Wow! Signal," The Guardian reported, citing insiders from the research team.

Wow! Signal "is a famous radio signal discovered in 1977. It is considered a" technical sign "- a term indicating the presence of an extraterrestrial civilization with a similar technological level. However, according to The Guardian does not rule out the possibility that the signal originating from Proxima Centauri is similar to Wow! Signal, which could be emitted from a comet or cloud of hydrogen.

"This is definitely the most interesting signal we have ever discovered in the Breakthrough Listen project, as no signal has ever passed many of our wave filters before," says researcher Sofia. Sheikh of Penn State University, in charge of signal analysis for Breakthrough Listen, expressed excitement about the finding. The mysterious signal is now named Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, or BLC1.

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The Proxima Centauri star system has a rocky exoplanet 17% larger than Earth and a gas giant.

According to Space.com, the biggest challenge in finding extraterrestrial civilizations comes from the fact that we don't know how aliens can communicate. Besides, we still do not fully understand the potential sources of natural radio signals in the universe.

Therefore, whenever we receive radio signals that are not coming from natural sources, we often think of these as signals sent by extraterrestrial civilizations.

As of now, scientists have yet to publish any data regarding BLC1 signals. However, even if these data are made public, chances are no one will be able to give an answer to the origin of this signal.

Micah Soto

Update 22 December 2020